


The Start of the End

by Mythological_Compendium



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Elder Scrolls Fusion, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Broken Bones, Child Death, Claudia Stilinski Memories, Elf Stiles Stilinski, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Multi, Necromancer Stiles Stilinski, Necromancy, Rimming, Skyrim References, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Voyeurism, Werewolf Derek Hale, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24760939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythological_Compendium/pseuds/Mythological_Compendium
Summary: "I'll cherish this life and the next with you."
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Heather & Stiles Stilinski, Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken, Stiles Stilinski/Other(s)
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

"Thank you, Lami," Stiles grunts as he pulls the box, filled nearly to the point of overflowing with various alchemical ingredients, to his belly then lifts it off the counter.

"Have you got it?" she asks, a crinkle in her blonde brow.

"I've got it," he assures. "If you could get the door?"

"Of course."

Lami makes her way around the shop's counter but the door clatters and swings open before she has the chance to reach for it.

In the doorway stands a man Stiles had never seen before in or around Morthal. A man who isn't covered in filth but smells as if he had been tending to dogs. A man with short dark hair that falls just above green eyes that are staring right back up at Stiles.

The box he carries suddenly feels like a baby mammoth in his arms and he nearly drops it.

The Nord fills up the doorway so completely that Stiles barely notices Heather standing behind him until she starts waving her arms.

"Excuse me," Stiles mutters as he moves to step around the behemoth blocking the only door.

" _Wow_ ," Heather exclaims as she closes the shop door behind Stiles. “From the look on your face, he must be _beautiful_.”

“Who?”

She snorts then mocks “ _Who_ ,” as she lightly bumps his arm with her own. "That Nord."

"I hadn't noticed."

Stiles squints as they step out from underneath the shadow of the Thaumaturgist's Hut and into an unusually sunny afternoon in Hjaalmarch Hold.

"All that time you spent staring at him and you _hadn't noticed_?"

Stiles turns to give her a hard look before starting down the street toward the edge of town.

As they approach their horse, tied to the lamp post standing outside the guards' barracks, Heather leans close enough to whisper, "You should choose him."

" _Him_?" Stiles scoffs though warmth settles in his belly at the idea. "No, he's...dangerous-looking. He won't come easy."

"You have to _make_ him come, Stiles, that's the _point_." She hums. "I bet he's got a cock like a ram's horn."

Stiles rolls his eyes as he hands her the box then moves to untie the horse's reins from the post.

"Don't pretend you weren't thinking the same."

"Leave it alone Heather."

"Fine." He hears the box's contents shift with her shrug. "Then _I'll_ choose him."

Stiles sighs and lays his hand on the horse's saddle where his satchel should be but he doesn’t see it.

"You're more than welcome to watch while we fuck."

Stiles pats his tunic and trousers over the cloak but he still doesn't feel the satchel.

Heather asks, "What's wrong?"

"I must have left my satchel at the Thaumaturgist's." He looks down the street at the door to the building he'd just left, the building that stunning Nord still occupies. "I won't be long."

"Tell him I said Hello."

Stiles groans and he takes a deep breath when he feels his heart rate start to climb.

He is almost to the door when it opens again and the Nord steps out. Stiles holds his breath and cast his gaze down lest he is caught staring again.

“Hey!” He points to the satchel in the Nord's fist. “That’s _mine_.”

“This?” He raises his hand and the satchel.

“Yes, thank you for finding it.”

Stiles moves into the shade of the building again and when he reaches out for the satchel, it is pulled just out of his grasp. He scowls at the Nord and gets a smirk in reply. He turns his gaze back to his satchel because, annoying though he may be, that smirk made his heart skip.

“What’s your name little elf?” he asks.

Stiles is unbothered by the derivative title that is shared by all Altmer in the eyes of all Nords. Golden-skinned and towering above every other species in Tamriel, the Altmer are used to having insults hurled at them from creatures that barely grow to the level of their chins, but something about the way this Nord says it sounds a little less spiteful than every other time he has heard it.

He sighs and folds his arms over his chest. “Stiles.”

The Nord hums and he turns the satchel every which way in his grasp to inspect it.

“I don’t see _Stiles_ written anywhere on this.”

"But it _is_ mine," Stiles argues, watching as the Nord starts to untie the clasp.

“Maybe if you can tell me the contents.”

“The contents are none of your business.”

He raises his brows. “Then I suppose the satchel is none of _yours_.”

“ _Fine_ ," Stiles huffs. "There’s…" The Nord flips open the satchel and pulls apart it's maw as Stiles continues, "A jar of blue butterfly wings, a jar of frost salts, and a handful of Hagraven feathers.”

The Nord turns his eyes up again and Stiles hates that his heart jumps.

He asks, “You an alchemist?” as he hands over the satchel.

Without another word, Stiles yanks his satchel from the Nord's grasp and turns away as he swings the strap over his head and shoulder.

“It’s Derek."

Stiles sighs but he stops and turns around. “What is?”

“My name.”

Stiles starts walking before Derek starts smiling at him again.

The sunlight shining in Heather's long, yellow hair is nothing compared to the beaming smile on her face.

"He's watching you," she says when Stiles reaches her.

"We need to get going." He takes the box from her then nods to the horse. "You know how Mother is when we're late."

" _Choose him_ , Stiles."

He replies, " _Get on the horse_ , Heather," through his teeth.

🌑

Their journey along the snow-covered road lasts one and a half hours and every moment of it is spent with Stiles' mind on that Nord. Derek. His hair and his eyes and his smirking lips. Stiles wonders what his skin tastes like and what those hands that clutched his satchel would feel like clutching his hips. He wonders if Heather is right about Derek's cock.

She sighs and shifts her hips on the saddle they share. "Home sweet home."

Stiles remembers his first time he ever came to the Kjenstag Ruins. As he, Heather, and Jaxun followed Mother through the arched entrance to the circle of broken stone, he had wondered at the ancient Nords' purpose for building it. Whether it was meant to be a home, a burial place, a shrine to some nonsense god. He wondered if they could've ever imagined what it is being used for now.

Stiles and Heather bow their heads as he guides the horse under the arch. The illusion shimmers as they pass through the barrier into the open area of the ruin.

To any onlooker, the ruins would seem to be of little interest. There is no flora for potions, no loot for treasure seekers, and it could hardly be mistaken for a strategic location in the war. Anyone walking by would see old stone and not much else.

"I'm glad to be out of the cold," Heather says as Stiles leads the horse toward the stable housing it's brothers and sisters. "But I'm not looking forward to Mother's wrath."

Stiles grunts as he dismounts.

"The sun hasn't set _yet_ ," he says as he holds out his hands for the box she has been carrying in her lap.

"Just because it's warm doesn't mean it's sunny."

He holds the box as Heather closes the stable gate then follows her through the tide of Deathbells to the stone table in the center of the ruin.

The press of a hidden button engages the mechanism to unlock the entrance underneath the table.

As the doorway slowly slides open to reveal the staircase and tunnels beneath, Stiles turns his eyes to the black soul gem hovering atop the broken wall behind the table. Mother told them that gem carries the soul of one of Tamriel's most powerful mages. One strong enough to hold the illusion protecting their homestead for the length of an era.

Stiles and Heather make their way through the tunnels to the bedchamber and find it empty. Every robe except for their own was gone from the stakes above every bed.

"She's already started," Heather whispers as she tugs at the ties in her corset.

"We don't have time for that," Stiles admonishes as he makes his way to his bed. "Just pull your robe on over it."

He lays the box down then places the satchel next to it.

"Ye gods," Heather grumbles as she watches him reach for the robe hanging over his bed, then quickly does the same to her own. "We're going to sweat to death."

"Don't worry," he chuckles. "Mother will bring us back to punish us."

Heather laughs, "Lovely."

🌑

“You’re late,” Mother says and her tone sends a chill down Stiles' spine.

He doesn't look back at her but he can feel her red eyes watching them. The others give them the courtesy of keeping their eyes forward.

“Sorry Mother," he and Heather say in unison as they make their way to the altar they share.

Before them lies a man, Imperial by the look of him. There is a deep wound in his neck and slash marks all over his arms and legs. Stiles wonders if Mother got this one from a battlefield.

He lays his satchel at the man's feet as he takes a look around at the other bodies in the room: Mostly men and mostly Imperial. Stiles takes this to mean that the Stormcloaks must be winning the war.

"We were late because Stiles was admiring a rather delectable Nord in town.”

He turns a glare on Heather and she doesn't look back at him, nor does she hide her smirk.

"Does that mean then that you've chosen your sacrifice?"

The question comes from Braeden and Stiles turns to the Redguard but before he can respond, Heather supplies, "Seemed to me like he was more interested in what comes _before_ the sacrifice."

"Well, isn't that the best part?"

A series of chuckles and affirmatives fill the room at Mhaalliea's exclamation.

" _Worms_!" Mother bangs the end of her staff against the stone floor, causing an otherworldly gong to sound within their heads. "Your attention on your _corpses_ , please."

They all say, "Sorry Mother."

"You are such a nuisance," Stiles grumbles as he watches Heather lay her hands flat against their man's chest.

"Where do you think he came from?" she asks.

"Cyrodiil." Stiles reaches into his satchel and pulls out both jars.

"Because he's an Imperial?"

"Because of his hands." He feels around blindly for the feathers but all he touches is the leather of the satchel. "Those aren't the hands of a man who does hard work for a living. He probably joined the Legion out of some sense of duty."

"I wonder what that Nord's hands are like." Heather hums. "I bet they're hard and I bet his fingers are _thick_."

Stiles upturns his satchel and shakes it but nothing falls out.

Heather scoffs, "Can't you see I'm trying to torment you?"

"I can't find my Hagraven feathers."

"I thought you bought some."

"I _know_ I bought some but I can't find them."

She giggles, "Do you think _he_ took them?"

Stiles furrows his brow. "Who?"

"Not this again," she grumbles and rolls her eyes. "Your Nord."

"Why would _he_ take them?"

"So you'd have a reason to come back to town." She wiggles her eyebrows. "To see him again."

"You're making up stories." Stiles shakes his head. "They must've just fallen out on the way here."

Mother is standing on the other side of their altar and her sudden appearance makes Stiles and Heather gasp. They quickly turn their gaze away from her grey skin and furious red eyes to the waxen skin of their Imperial.

She asks, "Am I going to get any cooperation out of you two tonight?"

Stiles mutters, "Sorry Mother," as Heather says, "Yes Mother."

"Shape up!" She spits and bangs her staff on the floor again.

There is a cracking sound inside Stiles' head.

"Or you'll soon find yourselves on one of these altars."

Stiles doesn't raise his head until she moves away from them and when he turns to Heather, he sees her put her hand up to her nose while looking pointedly at his. He wipes the side of his hand under his nose and pulls it back wet with blood. He quickly wipes it clean in his robe.


	2. Chapter 2

Heather groans, "Where are you going?" when she rolls over in time to see him tying his boot.

"Back to Morthal," Stiles replies in a whisper as he grabs his satchel and stands up from the bed. "I'm going to check the way for my feathers and if I don't find them, I'm going to buy more."

"Can't you go later? It isn't as if there'll ever be a line out the door at any point in the day."

"Shhh!" erupts from one of the others in the room.

"I'm going." He licks his thumb and forefinger then ousts the candle at his bedside, leaving the room in darkness again. "I'll be back in time for breakfast."

The sun had already started it's ascent into the sky when Stiles emerges from underneath the stone table, but it's light barely makes it through the perpetual cloud cover that is distinctive of this part of Skyrim. He contemplates taking a horse but thinks it would be easier to see his feathers if he were on foot.

The world around him is slowly swallowed in fog the closer he gets to the Hold capital and Stiles can barely see his own feet let alone the feathers that may or may not be on the road so he decides to give up his search and just find his way back to the Thaumaturgist's Hut.

"What a waste," he mutters to himself as he shakes septims from his purse into his hand.

He is counting out enough for five Hagraven feathers and maybe a torch so he'd be able to see his way back home when he hears something snap.

Stiles freezes. His breaths burst out in sharp little puffs that seem to add to the fog as he listens for something other than birds in the trees or bugs in the bushes. What he soon hears are footsteps crunching snow. Heavy, thudding things that no man or mer could make regardless of their size.

Stiles slides his coin back into the purse and the purse back into his satchel. The footsteps stop but the last one was close enough that Stiles could count that there were four feet.

He takes off running.

His only hope is that the fog is thick enough for him to make it to Morthal before that thing, whatever it is, that he can almost feel breathing on his neck catches up to him.

Stiles' lungs are burning and his breaths gasping when he sees something glowing orange up ahead, like a wisp in the distance. He would laugh if he could hold enough air.

The glow becomes brighter the closer Stiles gets and he is at the edge of fainting when he crashes into the man holding the torch.

"Whoa!" He exclaims, dropping his torch in order to catch Stiles before they both tumble to the ground.

"S-Someth-Some—" Stiles gasps in air so he can finally exclaim, "Something's chasing me!"

The man laughs, " _What's_ chasing you?"

"I…I dunno, I…" Stiles looks out to the fog behind him but he doesn't see a creature nor hear it's approach. "The f-fire must've… scared it."

"Scared _what_?"

When Stiles turns to remove himself from the arms he hadn't realized were still around him, he sees a familiar face.

" _You_ ," he breathes.

When Stiles looks away from those eyes and that smile, his gaze falls to the feathers hanging on a string around Derek's neck.

“Hey!” Stiles gasps. “Those are _mine_!”

“Is that your favored way of greeting people?”

“You _stole_ m...feathers?”

At the moment, Stiles is glad that Heather chose not to accompany him. He doesn't know if he'd be able to stomach the sight of her waggling eyebrows when she is proven right. He doesn't want to know how she would react to the sight of his reddening cheeks.

“I found them on the road," Derek says as he bends to retrieve his torch. "Didn't seem like you wanted them."

Stiles huffs, "How far...away is town?"

Derek nods at the whiteness. "We're just on the other side of the barrow."

"Good. Stay here."

"Why?" Derek asks as Stiles steps past him.

"I want...to be able to find you...when I return...with a guard to arrest...you for stealing.”

“Go ahead." Derek laughs. "I’ll be sure to ask if he knows what you and your coven are doing inside their ruin.”

Stiles freezes then exhales sharply before he faces Derek again and looks him in the eyes.

"What are you talking about? What _coven_?”

“That _is_ still what you still call a group of witches, isn't it?”

Stiles forces a laugh. “You think I’m a _witch_.”

“How else do you explain the Hagraven feathers?”

“I’m an alchemist like you said.” He glances down at the feathers resting against Derek's chest and extends his arm. "And I'd thank you to hand them over."

Derek raises his brows. "I thought you were getting a guard."

Stiles takes a step forward. "Give me my feathers."

Derek smiles softly as he lifts the string from around his neck. He hangs it on the tip of his middle finger and holds it out between them.

Stiles imagines Heather's snickers as he forces himself not to stare at Derek's hand while he snatches his feathers from it.

"Witchcraft is outlawed you know."

A different type of heat builds in Stiles' chest and he grits his teeth as he hangs the string around his own neck.

"I'm _not_ a witch."

"Well you're certainly no alchemist so what _are_ you?" Derek runs his gaze over Stiles from his head to his boots. "Why do you and that girl stink like a grave?”

Stiles narrows his eyes. "Why do _you_ know what a grave smells like?"

"I've spent time in one," Derek replies with a nonchalant shrug. "I was being hunted so I hid."

"In a grave."

"Yes." Derek takes another step and Stiles gulps. "So I know what one smells like."

One more step brings them almost chest-to-chest, close enough that Stiles can feel the heat from Derek's torch as well as Derek's body.

"Just like I know your pulse is racing and your breath is quickening with every step I take closer to you.”

Stiles' throat feels suddenly dry but he manages to croak, "I was just…" before he has to clear his throat. "I was running _for my life_."

Derek raises his brows. "Running from fog?"

Stiles turns his eyes up the road. "There was _something_ there, I heard it."

Of all the creatures that roam Skyrim's wilds, there's no telling what was chasing him but something was certainly chasing him.

"I believe you," Derek says and Stiles looks down at him again. "Ears like that, you can probably hear the moons moving."

Stiles scoffs. "At least I don't stink like a big, wet, homeless dog.”

Derek grins. "Better than smelling like rotten flesh."

"I do _not_ smell like rotten flesh."

"You're right." He leans up to whisper, "You smell like lust," against Stiles' lips.

Stiles rolls his eyes and grumbles, "Don't flatter yourself."

He steps away from Derek and forces himself to steady his breathing again.

"I'll be getting that guard now."

"You'd do better to go back to your death-house, little elf."

Stiles furrows his brow as Derek turns over his own shoulder to look into the fog.

"Can't you hear your mother calling?"

It feels as if a ball of iron forms in the pit of Stiles' stomach.

"H-How do y—"

"Whoa!"

Something hard and heavy clips the back of Stiles' shoulder, forcing a cry from him as it forces him to the ground.

"Easy, easy, shh!" Someone calls from high above. "Are you alright?"

Even this close the carriage is barely visible in the milky white air but the grey horse pulling it is nearly invisible. The carriage driver, reins in one hand and a lit torch in the other is looking down at the heap his horse knocked to the ground.

Stiles scowls at his offender then replies, "I'm fine," as he rests his other hand on his throbbing shoulder.

"Well then get out of the road idiot!" The carriage driver yells. "Don't you see this fog?"

"Did you think today may be a bad day for a grey horse?!"

The carriage driver harrumphs as he whips the reins, urging his horse forward again.

When Stiles turns his gaze to the space Derek had occupied, he finds it empty.

He makes his way back to his feet as he turns around in the white space but Derek nor his torch is to be seen or heard. The iron ball in Stiles' gut seems to double in size.

He purses his lips and grasps the feathers in his fist as he follows the carriage driver's torchlight back up the road toward the ruin.

🌑

Jaxun narrows his slitted eyes. "He just _disappeared_?"

"Yes."

"But you said it was foggy so..." Braeden shrugs. "He could've been walking next to you the whole time. You probably just led him here."

"But he knew about the ruin _before_ ," Stiles counters. "It wasn't foggy yesterday and yesterday was the first time we'd ever seen him."

Mother asks, "What does he look like?"

Stiles casts his gaze down the long stone table, past the line of his fellow black-robed Worms and their plates of jazbay crostatas to their Dunmer leader, their Anchorite.

"He's a Nord so...tall and fair-skinned." Stiles glances at the only Nord in their nest. "But his hair is dark, not yellow like Heather's."

"What about his eyes?"

"Green." Stiles takes a deep breath as he recalls staring down into those eyes. He mutters, "Like glass in lake water."

Heather hums and he doesn't look at her.

"I want you to stay indoors until further notice," Mother says. "There's no telling what that Nord wants with you."

Stiles blinks. "Yes, Mother."

She gives him a sharp nod then turns her attention back to the pastry on her plate.

"Well…” Heather sighs as she swipes her finger through the jazbay grape filling of her own crostata, coating her fingertip in purple. “Seems you were right."

"About what?"

"You said Derek was dangerous-looking," She lowers her voice before adding, “and now he might be a threat to our nest."

Jaxun looks up at them again and Heather squares her shoulders.

"I'm not sure he is a threat," Stiles says. "If he sought our destruction in any way then why wouldn’t he report us to the guards?”

“How do we know he hasn’t?” Jaxun asks. “How do we know they aren’t marching on us as we speak?”

“I pity you, Has-No-Ears, so I’ll say it again slowly.” Stiles leans toward the scowling Argonian sitting across from him. “He’s known about us since _at least yesterday_.”

Jaxun scoffs.

“And besides, there are only ten of us and we vastly outnumber the Morthal guard. Not to mention outpower them.”

“Perhaps my decision was too rash,” Mother says and they all face her again. “Perhaps you _should_ move about as normal and when he comes to you again, you must extract as much information from him as you can through any means necessary.”

Heather turns to Stiles and whispers, “ _Any_ means,” with a smirk.

Stiles bumps her with his elbow.

“Regardless of his intentions,” Mother continues. “We _will_ introduce him to the Revenant.”

Stiles schools his expression, even gives his Anchorite a nod but he can’t help but feel a measure of dread at the idea.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it in the updated tags, there is description of a child dying a particularly violent death in this chapter.

The Drajkmyr Marsh is humming with the songs of every little creature that calls it home.

Stiles, standing on a bank with his discarded clothes and boots in the brush behind him, stares out into the shadows as he listens to the music.

As he lay restless in the stagnant air of the bedchamber some time ago, listening to the sounds of slow, even breaths the occasional snore, he knew that sleep wasn't coming easy this night.

Keeda was the only other one awake when he laid down and he had turned onto his side to watch in the candlelight by her bed as the Khajiit slowly swept the tip of her tail back and forth across the floor. Not even her consistent motion was capable of lulling him to sleep and there he lay long after she had ousted her candle and slipped into slumber herself.

The moment the thought of a midnight swim crept into his mind, he reached out for Heather in the dark, but she groaned and pulled away from him in her sleep.

So here he stands, alone and half-naked in the dark and damp.

He hadn't realized his feet had sunk so deep into the muck until he tries to move himself to the edge of the dark water.

The air around him is chilly and the water even more so but Stiles is undeterred. He moves deeper until the water slips up to his knees.

The cold abyss is dampening the edge of his loincloth when Stiles hears a growl echo through the night, followed by a scream that he can almost feel in his own chest.

He makes his way back to the bank, kicking up black water and swamp stench as he moves toward his clothes.

"HELP!"

It's a child's voice he hears echoing in the silenced marshland followed by thudding footsteps. The familiar sound makes Stiles' hands shake on the tie for his trousers.

As he drops down to pull a boot onto his foot, he notices that this cry, "HELP ME!" sounds closer than the first.

Stiles stands upright again.

"You're close!" He calls as he moves back into the water. "I can hear you!"

"WHERE ARE Y—"

Stiles gasps when he hears another monstrous growl and he can't help but think that this one sounds triumphant, an announcement that the prey had been caught. His lower lip quivers and his eyes sting with tears.

With a sob, he starts to cross the water to the other bank.

Mud squishes and dry grass snaps under Stiles' bare feet as he makes his way through the marsh toward where he last heard the boy and the beast.

His desperate intention is to see it for what it truly is then to destroy it, to take revenge for being chased through the fog, and to avenge the short life it snuffed out.

Something shifts in his periphery and Stiles halts.

This night, unusually clear of clouds and mist, benefits the hunter because he can watch his prey move about without the protection of shadows, but moonslight and the thin, twisted trees of the marshland provide Stiles with no element of surprise. Though he is grateful for the luck of being behind the creature.

He watches the man-shaped thing as it falls to its knees in the soft, wet ground. He watches its shoulders move as it reaches down then pulls something to its chest.

Stiles thinks the soft, gurgling sound he hears is coming from the creature but then he realizes that it must be coming from the child. Bile turns in Stiles' belly as he calls upon the plane of Oblivion.

He wants to see its face, wants to watch as the contentment of a feeding turns to anguish and fear as his Frost Atronach, a hulking Daedra of solid ice and brute force, leaps from the conjured portal and batters the life out of the creature that would harm a child.

Arms outstretched toward the creature, Stiles screams, "Show your face monster!"

It turns and Stiles expects a growl, he expects to see long, sharp teeth flashing in the moonslight, he expects to see furious eyes, but what he sees is " _Derek_?"

"Stiles?"

"Wh—" He lowers his hands, disengaging the spell. "What are you doing?"

He can see the frown on Derek's face before he turns away.

"I found him," Derek says, looking down at the child in his lap.

Stiles takes a deep breath when he steps close enough to see the state of the child cradled in Derek's arms.

His torn tunic and down the front of his trousers are covered in blood and both his arms, nearly enveloped by one of Derek's hands, are curled over his stomach as if he is still trying to stop the bleeding. When he coughs, blood bubbles from his mouth and between Derek's fingers.

"It was a troll," Derek says then nods to Stiles' right.

When Stiles turns he sees what looks to be a massive mound of hair laying on the grass. There is blood covering the creature too, pooled in the mud around its neck.

"I killed it but…" Derek sighs softly. "I was too late."

Stiles kneels before Derek and runs his hand through the boy's hair. He doesn't know if it is wet from sweat, blood, or marsh water.

"I saw you were about to cast a spell," Derek says. "Can you heal him?"

Stiles shakes his head and his heart hurts when he softly admits, "My skills in Restoration aren't exactly practiced."

The boy's eyes are fixed on the sky and his breaths are heaving.

"And besides," Stiles' voice cracks. "It's too late now." He strokes his thumb over the boy's forehead. "I'm so sorry."

Derek sniffles as he pulls his bloody hand away from the child's open belly to rest it over his face. In a swift movement, done in the space between the beats of Stiles' heart, Derek snaps his neck.

The sharp sound robs Stiles of his air.

He watches Derek gently lay the boy on the cold ground then brush the wet hair out of his young face. He watches Derek rise to his feet while ripping at the edge of his tunic. He watches Derek move toward the stream of black water that rolls past them to wet the cloth then bring it back to the boy's body.

"What _are_ you?" Stiles asks when he gets his breath back. "No _man_ could've done something like that."

Derek glances up at Stiles then turns his attention to wiping the blood from the boy's face.

"You couldn't heal him so you assume _I'm_ a beast for ending his suffering?"

Derek's voice is soft and serious, very unlike the teasing tone that Stiles is used to.

He watches Derek pull the blood-soaked tunic up to reveal the slash marks in the boy's torso then wipe the cloth slowly around the wounds, washing the blood to the ground.

"It wouldn't have been much longer," Stiles argues.

"He'd already been suffering for too long." Derek looks at the boy's face with a frown. "I was going to release him when you walked up and I thought you could heal him but since you couldn't..."

"Then it's _my_ fault?"

"I didn't say that." He drops the blood-soaked cloth to the blood-soaked ground. "The _troll_ killed him, Stiles, there was nothing either one of us could do about it."

Stiles looks at the dead child.

In all his years with Mother, he had always wondered how the corpses she laid before him and the others came to be the way they are. He often wondered what they felt at the time of death, whether it was peace or fear. This boy, though his last moments were filled with pain and terror, he looks peaceful.

Stiles considers that a benefit, something to be harnessed in due time.

"You never answered my question," he says.

Derek takes a seat on the cold ground. "I'll tell you what I am when you tell me what you are."

"Fine." Stiles shrugs. "But you first."

Derek stares at him for a moment before saying, "I'm a man."

Stiles snorts. "A man who can kill a troll with his bare hands?"

Derek purses his lips and looks at the dead monster.

"Unless you have an invisible sword."

That makes Derek chuckle.

"And you can disappear in the blink of an eye. You can..." Stiles takes a deep breath before he continues, "You can... _smell_ lust."

Derek shifts his gaze back and Stiles has to force himself not to look away.

"No _man_ can do all that."

With a sigh, Derek turns his gaze up to the sky.

"Have you ever heard of Sanies Lupinus?"

Stiles furrows his brow. "No."

"It's a disease," Derek continues as he faces Stiles again. "A disease that makes the afflicted _very_ sleepy." He places his hands on the ground and uses them to push himself backward, away from Stiles and the dead boy. "It's akin to Bone Break Fever or Rattles in that it steals your strength and you can catch it if something with the disease bites you."

"Are you trying to convince me that you have this disease?" Stiles watches Derek move even further away. "Because falling asleep isn't going to save you." He lies, "I am _very_ patient."

Derek throws his head back with a laugh and Stiles notices something different about his teeth.

"After about three days confined to a bed and plagued by horrible nightmares," Derek continues, "Anyone afflicted with Sanies Lupinus will then awaken with certain… abilities."

"Such as the ability to circumvent a question?"

Derek shakes his head. "Oh, little elf."

The name-calling raises Stiles' hackles but a retort dies on his lips when he notices the smoke.

Thin plumes, blacker than the night around them and the water flowing past them, are pouring out of Derek's skin at an alarming rate.

Stiles exhales heavily as he watches the smoke completely engulf Derek, leaving nothing but a shapeless void where he used to be.

"Derek?" He breathes as he leans forward onto his hands and is careful to look down so he doesn't lean into the boy's body.

When he turns his gaze back up he is met by two pinholes of black surrounded by a deep blue. His breath hitches when he takes in the dark fur surrounding those eyes and he gulps when he notices the fanged maw underneath them.

At that moment it occurs to Stiles that, as monstrous as they are, Trolls only have two feet. So the dead thing laying in the mud couldn't be what was chasing him through the fog nearly a week ago. This creature before him is one Stiles had never seen outside of a Bestiary but he doesn't have to look to know that a werewolf runs on four feet.

" _You_ were the one chasing me through the mist," he says. "And then you laughed at me because I was afraid!"

Derek stares at him with those cold eyes and Stiles thinks he can still recognize that smirk.

"Well, I'm not afraid of you _now_ ," Stiles snarls. "You're only a—"

Derek's roar knocks Stiles on his ass as it knocks the air out of his lungs. He gasps around his racing heart when Derek leaps over him to snap massive jaws right before his eyes.

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and yells, "If you eat me I can't tell you what I am!"

He can feel Derek's low growl in his own chest and he doesn't open his eyes until he can no longer feel the heat from Derek's body hovering over him.

Stiles pulls himself up to his elbows in time to see Derek's beast form disappearing into black smoke again. He sits upright as he waits for a man to reemerge from the void.

He thinks he should turn his head when dark hair and the pale skin of Derek's bare shoulders shake free from the smoke and he realizes that if Derek is no longer wearing his tunic then he may not be wearing anything else at all. Still, he makes no move to look away until Derek turns to look over his own shoulder.

"Well?"

Stiles can feel the marsh muck soaking into the back of his clothes. He clears his throat and brushes his muddy palms down the front of his tunic.

"I'm a necromage," he says to the nearest tree. "A member of the Order of the Black Worm."

Stiles peeks out of the corner of his eye to watch Derek bend to inspect his tattered trousers. He tsks.

"And you…" Stiles rolls his eyes. "You were right. I was... lustful."

Derek chuckles, " _Was_?" as he makes his way back to the place he had occupied.

"It was only because I intended to sacrifice you."

Derek blinks. "I beg your pardon?"

"The members of our cell were tasked to find people who are willing to…give themselves to us physically because that makes it easier to take their souls when the time comes."

"To what end?"

"We use their bodies for the betterment of our Magicka. Their souls are meant for the creation of black soul gems."

Derek narrows his eyes.

"They are the only gems that can hold the soul of a man or mer," Stiles explains. "Love makes a soul richer, makes it stronger and we use them to power and protect our sanctuaries...and our selves."

"At the risk of innocent people's lives."

"A werewolf has some nerve to protest our methods," Stiles scoffs. "Don't your kind have to murder innocents to sate your ungodsly hunger?"

"That's different."

" _Yes_ our sacrifices are used for a higher purpose and your _victims_ are eaten."

Derek turns his head and Stiles watches his jaw clench.

"So what now?" He asks, facing Stiles again. "Do you still intend to sacrifice me?"

Stiles slowly shakes his head. "Despite your ardent declaration, you're not human and I can't give your soul to one Daedric Prince when it already belongs to another."

"That's a shame," Derek mutters.

Stiles furrows his brow. "You _want_ to be sacrificed?"

"I want to know what it's like to be your thrall."

Chill bumps erupt all over Stiles' skin and Derek wrinkles his nose. Stiles gulps when he realizes that Derek must be smelling that lust again.

"Why?" Stiles asks.

"I value new experiences," Derek replies with a shrug. "You can have me and sacrifice the boy."

Stiles shakes his head as he turns his eyes back to the broken and bloodied child.

"The sacrifice has to be alive at the time," he says as he moves to his knees. "And besides I have other plans for him."

"What kind of plans?"

Stiles holds both arms out over the boy's body and takes a deep breath. He rests one hand on the child's cold head while the other sweeps through the air above his feet.

He hadn't realized that the boy had broken his ankle until they hear it snap back into place.

Derek murmurs, "I thought you said you weren't a healer."

"I'm trying to concentrate."

The tears on his trousers, tunic, and the skin beneath seem to mend as Stiles slowly moves his hand up the boy's body. He winces when he hears the bones of his little broken neck pull themselves back into place then sighs as he lays both hands on the boy's head.

Stiles looks at Derek and finds he is being intently watched. He keeps their gazes locked so he can witness every moment of surprise on Derek's face when ribbons of blue light surround their dead charge and lift it to its feet between them.

It is everything he hoped it would be. He even thinks he hears Derek gasp.

"Open your eyes," Stiles says with a smile he can't hide.

The corpse does as it is told and Stiles takes it by its cold chin.

He stares into the icy blue nothingness of its eyes and says, "I want you to go home. I want you to tell your mother you love her. I want you to hug your father goodbye. Then I want you to come back here before sunrise. Repeat it."

It's newly dead vocal cords are still fresh but Stiles expects it to struggle to call its voice back from Oblivion then expel it through a throat full of blood.

"Love Mama," it says in a strained, crackled voice no child would have. "Hug Papa. Back here."

"Good now go."

Derek turns his head to watch as the corpse clumsily trudges past him.

"Wow," he breathes. "You are truly powerful, little elf."

"I hope he makes it back in time." Stiles grunts as he pushes himself to his feet. "And _stop_ calling me th—"

🌑

It's the cold pressing against his face that wakes him and Stiles opens his eyes to find eyes, like glass under lake water, staring down at him.

He is laid in Derek's lap, held in much the same way the boy was.

Stiles gulps and his throat is raw. "I hope that's not the same cloth you used to clean his face."

"I didn't have any other cloth," Derek replies with the usual smirk, and Stiles can't help but laugh. "I knew elves were breezy but to watch one faint was unexpected."

"I didn't _faint_ ," Stiles grumbles as he pushes himself out of Derek's grasp. "It takes a lot of Magicka to alter reality _and_ reanimate a corpse so I was... overwhelmed."

Derek drops the cloth to the ground and Stiles notices that it was indeed a clean piece ripped from his trousers.

"Does that mean I'll have to wait my turn then?"

Stiles furrows his brow. "Wait your turn for what?"

"Well don't you have to cast some kind of spell to make me your thrall?"

He searches Derek's eyes. "You were serious about that?"

"I was," he replies with a nod.

Stiles doesn't understand why a creature would make this choice but he doesn't let himself question it.

"It's not a spell," he says, shifting onto his knees but sitting on his own legs so they could be eye-to-eye.

Derek breathes "A potion then?" onto Stiles' lips.

Stiles shakes his head as he takes Derek's face into his hands. "Not a potion."

Derek grins when he asks, "Then what?" but Stiles gets the feeling he already knows the answer.

Stiles doesn't expect the warmth that explodes in his chest when their lips touch. He doesn't expect to hear a low growl in Derek's chest as he wraps him in inhumanly strong arms and yanks him onto his lap. He doesn't expect the bolt of electricity that rolls down his spine and straight into his cock when he feels the edge of Derek's wolf teeth against his lower lip. He certainly doesn't expect to pull away to get at the tie on what was left of those trousers only to find that Derek is scowling.

His stomach falls. "What's… What's wrong?"

"Have you been _regularly_ bathing in this swamp water?"

"W- _What_?"

"You _do_ know that all the piss and shit from Solitude ends up in the marshland, don't you?"

Stiles closes his eyes and takes a deep breath then exhales it heavily. Before he can pull away enough to get his feet under him, Stiles is being overturned to the ground again.

"I don't mean to insult you," Derek says as he leans his face into Stiles' neck.

"You've done nothing _but_ insult me the entire time we've known each other," Stiles replies through his teeth then gasps when Derek rolls his hips. "Do your lovers respond when you talk to them that way?"

Derek drags his blunt teeth over the lobe of Stiles' ear.

"I leave my lovers quite unable to speak." He rolls his hips again and forces a moan from Stiles. "See?"

"Maybe _you're_ just talking so much you don't notice."

He takes Derek by the hair and pulls him up so their lips meet again.

Derek laughs into this kiss as his hands tug at Stiles' tunic, making him shiver when his warm skin meets the cold ground.

It isn't until Derek pulls away to turn his attention to untying Stiles' trousers that he notices the light touching the tops of the trees.

"Oh," he whines and grabs Derek by the wrists before he unbuttons the loincloth. "I have to go."

Derek's chest is heaving as he stares into Stiles' eyes. " _Now_?"

"Yes." He reluctantly drags himself through the mud, away from Derek. "If I'm not there when Mother wakes—"

"Your mother is in the cult too?"

"She's not my real mother," Stiles says as he fixes his erection so it isn't pushing against the strap of his loincloth. "She's our leader and she's temperamental."

Derek's shoulders droop and he watches Stiles' hands while they retie his trousers.

Stiles sighs as he crawls back toward Derek.

"When can I see you again?"

"Tonight," Stiles replies easily as he presses their foreheads together. "We can meet back _here_ if—"

" _Here_?" Derek snorts. "When the Troll will have rotted?"

Stiles laughs softly as he rubs his thumb over Derek's lips. "Then can you meet me outside the ruin?"

"The _Kjenstag_ Ruin?

Stiles nods. "Once the sun has gone down."

Derek makes a face but he softly agrees.

Stiles sighs and he gives Derek another kiss before forcing himself to his feet. He doesn't let himself linger, staring into those green eyes and brushing his thumb across those lips. He stands, he steps around Derek, and he makes his way back toward his home on the far-away bank.


	4. Chapter 4

"A _werewolf_?" Heather gasps. " _My_ thrall is a moldy laborer. Can't we switch?"

Stiles laughs as he takes care not to let the petals touch the strip of visible skin between his gloved hand and his sleeve as he plucks another Deathbell flower from the stalk.

"I won't tell Mother if we switch."

Heather holds out the basket for him to drop the plant into and smiles at him when he furrows his brow at her. 

"Why would I care if you tell Mother?"

"The soul of every were belongs to Hircine." She wipes the back of her hand over the sweat on her forehead. "Therefore he can't be sacrificed to Molag Bal so you're wasting your time with him when you could be securing a more suitable thrall."

Stiles mutters, "I would hardly call it a waste of time."

"Well, you know what I mean."

He places another Deathbell in the basket and counts five.

"Do you think he'll be jealous when you have to choose someone else?"

Stiles' hand hovers in the space between himself and his last Deathbell. "I don't know," he says.

"Our entire mission revolves around sex Stiles. You can't do your part for the nest if he eats your lovers."

Stiles softly replies, "That won't happen," but he doesn't know if his statement is true.

"I still can't believe you left him in the marsh."

Stiles sighs as he straightens his back with the sixth flower in his hand.

"I didn't want to be late again."

" _I_ would've stayed." Heather shrugs. "To Oblivion with Mother and her rules."

"Do you remember the time she made my brain nearly come out my nose?"

Heather opens her mouth with a retort but then snaps it shut again. He gives her a purse-lipped smile as he takes the basket out of her grasp.

"Well…" she says, bobbing on the balls of her feet as they descend into the tunnels. "If you're so keen on the rules then why didn't you bring him back here? You would be obeying Mother, Derek would get to mount you, and we would all get to find out how much of a beast he truly is."

Stiles shakes his head. "I'd rather not have the entire nest watching us."

"It never bothered you before. Remember that girl Jaxun had his eye on for _weeks_ that you took—" She stops mid-stride and gestures at the floor. "Right about here?"

Stiles grins at the memory then shrugs when Heather appears at his shoulder again.

"She was terrified of Where's-His-Cock anyway," he says to Heather now as he explained to Jaxun then.

Heather rests one hand on his shoulder and lays the other over her chest. "And you were simply saving him from heartbreak."

" _Yes_ , exactly."

Heather throws her head back and they both cackle as Stiles knocks on the alchemy lab door with his fist.

"But really, Heather," Stiles breathes through his chuckles then shakes his head. "This is different. _Derek_ is different and I don't want to share him."

"Stiles…"—He watches her smile sweetly as she grasps his arm—"It almost sounds like you might be in love."

His face falls and he is telling himself that she is only joking when the alchemy lab door opens to reveal both Liam and Theo in the frame. Stiles doesn't notice that Heather raises her brow at the same moment that he raises his own, but he does notice that the Breton and the Bosmer have matching sets of flushed cheeks and mussed hair.

They grumble, "What?" in unison and Theo folds his arms over his chest while Liam rubs a hand over his own neck.

Stiles shakes his head and lifts the basket toward Liam. "Here’s the Deathbells you wanted."

"Oh.” Liam’s expression brightens and Stiles notices the mark he was trying to hide under his hand as he takes the basket. “Thank you."

Mother calls, "Worms!" and her voice echoes through every head.

Without a moment's hesitation, the four of them quickly make their way toward the altar room.

As they move, Heather mutters, "Have you ever seen them in the lab together before?"

Stiles shakes his head and she giggles.

"I heard a story today," Mother is saying as they all move toward their respective altars. "It was a short but interesting tale about a young boy making his way home. This boy had been eviscerated. This boy had a broken neck."

Stiles gulps down his heart.

"This boy's mother nearly died of fright when her bloodless, hollow-eyed, crooked-necked child dragged his innards into her home, reached out for her then disintegrated into ash at her feet."

Stiles slides his eyes closed and purses his lips. He can almost hear his mama's voice calling out to him from Oblivion. He can almost see her furious yellow eyes as she scolds him for being a failure, a disgrace to their family and their kind.

"And _now_ …" Mother laughs a humorless laugh. "Now there is talk of Necromancers in Hjaalmarch so I will ask _once_. Who did it?"

"It was me," Stiles says and he watches as every eye in the room turns to him. "I was swimming when I found him in the marshland," he explains. "He was killed by a troll and… I thought his family deserved a chance to say a proper goodbye so I altered the state of his body and I raised him."

Mother takes a deep breath.

"I didn't think the spell would wear off so quickly." He chose not to say the word _fail_ because that was his mama’s word, not his. "I meant for him to return to his deathplace before daylight."

"Let this be a lesson Worms."

Stiles grits his teeth and turns his gaze down to his own hands resting on the altar surface.

"We are not healers of bodies nor families. Do not give yourself a mantle you are unable to lift."

Heather hooks her arm around his.

"We'll have to accelerate our timeline so every mage with a thrall, gather them _and_ your belongings. We start for Winterhold at this time tomorrow." She turns her eyes on Stiles as she says, "Those of you who'll be _without_ a thrall, you know who to thank."

🌑

The night air is cool under the perpetually overcast sky and Stiles has felt an odd twinge in his gut ever since he stepped out of the tunnels.

For four years, Mother and her nest have called Hjaalmarch home and Stiles is more than used to the dreary sights but as he takes in his surroundings for what could be the last time, Stiles wonders if he'll miss the aroma of damp or the eerie sounds that echo over the marshland, the taste of salt in the air.

An orange glow appears in the distant grey and Stiles takes a deep breath. He folds his arms underneath his cloak and presses them against his belly in an attempt to quell the roiling within.

The firelight catches Derek's soft smile and Stiles easily returns it as he nods to Derek uncloaked shoulders.

"Aren't you cold?"

Derek shrugs. "I'll be warm soon enough."

Stiles snorts. "Up here," he says with a nod to his left. "And keep that lit, we'll need it."

Up the hillock just outside the ring of the ruin is a rock formation. Stiles had once mused that it might be the only thing in the Nord homeland that stands unnamed. Flanked by the ruin and often shrouded by the fog creeping out of the marshland, this site is virtually undetectable by prying eyes even when a fire is lit. Heather had once boasted that they didn't even need a soul gem to hide this place.

"What is this?" Derek mutters as they approach the raised tent and the pile of wood surrounded by stones.

"On clear nights this is where Heather and I would come to look at the stars."

She had helped him with the tent and firewood while the sun was still hanging in the sky. Her every word from the moment they set to the tasks until she left on horseback to retrieve her thrall was a thinly-veiled innuendo referencing his intentions for their special place and constant demands for details upon her return.

Derek asks, "Was Heather the one in town with you?" as he crouches to push the torch into the mound of firewood and tinder.

"Yes."

"And she is your...?"

Heather's question of Derek's potential for jealousy comes to the front of Stiles' mind as he watches Derek stare intently into the pile of wood as if willing smoke to rise from within.

Stiles turns his smile away and replies, "She's a close friend," and starts toward the tent.

"Is that all she is?"

Stiles lifts the tent flap and crouches to peer inside at the knapsack in the corner. He replies, "She's a fellow Worm," as he pulls the knapsack open.

He can hear the crackling of a fire coming to life and when he reemerges from within the tent with two bottles in his hand, Stiles notices Derek's gaze move from staring over his shoulder at the mound of straw and furs within the tent to staring at him.

"Oh." Stiles raises his brows and tries to keep the smirk off his own face. "Are you asking if she's my lover?" He watches Derek stand as he pulls the torch out from the stack of wood. "What if she is?"

Derek makes his way toward Stiles and lays the torch on one of the stones as he sits.

"Then I wouldn't want to come between you."

Stiles chuckles, "I should tell you, she would welcome that," as he offers a bottle to Derek, who waves his hand at it.

"A Nord who doesn't drink?"

"A High Elf who drinks _mead_?"

Stiles shrugs as he tugs the cork from the mouth of the bottle. "When in Skyrim, do as the Nords do."

That makes Derek smile and he takes the proffered bottle but immediately sets it on the ground.

Stiles assumes Derek is content to watch him drink and Stiles is content to let him. The tumult in his stomach had quieted but it was far from gone and with every mouthful of mead, he hopes to drown it, but Derek takes Stiles’ bottle and lays it right next to his own then moves closer. The way his eyes shine in the firelight makes Stiles’ breath catch.

“I was drinking th—”

This kiss sends a jolt through Stiles just like the first and Stiles can't help but gasp sharply as he sinks into it. Derek sighs into his mouth as his hand finds its way to the tie on Stiles’ cloak. As Derek pushes the cloak off his shoulders, the feeling that had been raging in Stiles’ gut gets a name: trepidation.

He forces himself to push Derek away and he breathes, "We're leaving," into the scant space between their lips.

Derek furrows his brows and searches his eyes in the firelight. " _Leaving_?"

"For Hob's Fall Cave in Winterhold, where we do our ritual and afterward…" He shakes his head. "We won’t be returning to Hjaalmarch."

Stiles gulps when Derek frowns.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s because of the boy.”

“The _dead_ boy from last night?”

“Something went awry with the spell and he turned to ash before he could do what I commanded.”

Derek’s jaw drops open. “I saw a guard shoveling someth—”

“It was probably him," Stiles sighs. "And because of this, because I…made a mistake, people know that there are Necromancers in Hjaalmarch so we have to leave before they discover us."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Derek purses his lips.

“I’m telling you because I didn’t want you to come in search of me only to find that we had gone but I was also hoping that—”

Derek rests his thumb over Stiles' lips, quieting him. "That after a night of passion in this foggy field, I'd follow you into the deepest reaches of Skyrim's ice and snow like a… What did you call me? A big, wet, stinking dog.”

Stiles corrects, “Big, wet, _homeless_ dog,” with a sly smile that Derek returns. He rests his hand on Derek's neck. "So what's your answer?"

Derek chuckles and he lightly touches Stiles' forehead with his own as he reaches out for the buckle around the waist of Stiles' tunic.

They make quick use of their hands and the moments between each kiss are brief, spent tossing aside some piece of clothing or kicking off shoes and trousers in a nearly mad rush to be skin-to-skin, but before they have the chance to collide again, Stiles pulls himself into the tent.

He isn’t sure if it is a trick of the firelight that makes it seem like Derek’s eyes are blue again as he follows into their shelter and he doesn't get the chance to catch another glimpse before Derek drops his head to kiss his hip.

Stiles sighs as Derek kisses his way up skin that shudders with every press of his lips but when he reaches the scar that stretches across the underside of Stiles' ribs, he bucks him off.

Derek moves as if he would rise to his feet in the limited space if he could. He breathes, "What is it?"

Stiles is surprised by his own action and he stutters a reply.

"N-nothing, I—ah..."

He hasn't felt shy about his scar in a long time. Plenty of lovers and friends had asked about it, touched it, but something was different about Derek's lips brushing the edge of the long-healed cut.

He watches Derek's gaze drop to the pentagram all Worms bear in the center of their chests then further down to the long scar across his belly.

"I want to be on top," Stiles says.

Derek narrows his eyes then rolls them and mutters, "Elves," as he moves to lay on the fur.

Stiles gives him room with a scoff, "Don't be rude," and moves toward the knapsack.

"You're right, it's only _High_ Elves that demand control of everything."

Amongst the remaining bottles of Heather's mead, Stiles finds the phial of oil and pulls it out to shake next to his ear.

He says, "I wish I could control how much you talk."

"Then come back here and silence me."

Derek is completely bare when Stiles turns to him again. His fist slowly slides along his considerable length from the base to the dripping tip and Stiles watches, rapt, listening to his own breaths. Derek's skin shines in the firelight and Stiles knows those green eyes are staring back as his muscles work with every slide of his palm over his cock.

It dawns on him, as Derek switches hands so he can reach out for Stiles, that he should remove his own loincloth.

He sets the half-empty phial in Derek’s upturned palm and gets a soft laugh in reply. Stiles recognizes that he feels the way he did that morning Derek chased him through the fog at a full sprint and he hopes that Derek doesn’t notice the quake in his hands.

He doesn’t understand his own body’s reactions to Derek: the short breaths, the shivering that belies the sweat beading on his skin that has nothing to do with the fire outside the tent. He didn’t feel nearly this overwhelmed in the marsh last night but now he can't seem to keep control of himself. He doesn't want to think that it may be because this is the first and only time they'll get this chance.

Derek makes a soft sound as Stiles sets the loincloth to the side.

He mutters, "You're just as beautiful as I imagined," as he drops the phial so he can reach out to wrap his hand around Stiles' cock. "Or is every High Elf cock as golden and glorious as yours?"

Derek manages to give Stiles one pull in the same way he does his own before Stiles quickly pushes the hand away so he doesn’t end this prematurely like the virgin he hasn’t been in nearly half a century. Derek furrows his brow and opens his mouth but Stiles slaps one hand over his mouth as the other hand places the phial back into his grasp. He feels that smirk against his hand as Derek nods then lays both hands at his sides.

Stiles takes a moment to internally chastise his own balls for aching just from that brief touch then moves slowly so he doesn’t kick Derek in the face when he swings a leg over to straddle his chest.

He stares through the tent flaps at the firelight and tries to think about anything but the heat of Derek's skin underneath him or the way strong hands are hooking around his hips to pull him up a bit further, just enough that Stiles can feel Derek's breath on his flesh.

Stiles' eyes roll back when Derek uses both hands to spread him open and he can barely feel the brush of Derek’s stubble before he pulls himself up onto his knees with a gasp.

Stiles can feel himself dancing on the edge and he doesn’t know what he would do if he embarrasses himself. Derek starts to rub his palms over the back of Stiles' thighs, and though the action hardly helps, Stiles doesn't protest the touch.

Once Stiles has caught his breath, he angles his body forward to close his mouth around the tip of Derek's cock while staying up on his knees and away from Derek's mouth.

Derek squeezes Stiles' thighs and lets out a heavy breath as he starts to thrust between Stiles' lips. Stiles lowers himself to seated again as he watches Derek flex and bend his toes with each thrust working himself deeper. Stiles accepts him with practiced ease and Derek's grip on his hips tightens to the edge of painful with every move.

Derek uses his grasp to pull Stiles backward and the only warning Stiles gets is a quick huff of Derek's breath before lips circle his hole in a wet kiss.

Stiles cries out and he tries to get away again but Derek holds him down as he darts his tongue in then out then in again and again. He whimpers when Derek lets out a muffled moan into his flesh while continuing to thrust into air. Stiles curls his fist around Derek's cock and closes his eyes as he resigns to rutting against Derek's face.

He doesn't hear the cork of the phial popping out of its mouth over the roaring in his ears but he feels the warm, smooth press of Derek's finger alongside his languidly swiping and thrusting tongue.

When another oiled finger joins the first, Stiles pulls in a long gasp while his body goes rigid and he paints Derek's abdomen with his spill.

Stiles’ vision suddenly upends and he finds himself propped on his elbows and knees with Derek knelt behind him. Stiles arches his back in silent invitation and Derek doesn’t hesitate to take him.

His world is nothing but the feeling of Derek guiding his hips with pulls and pushes and it’s all Stiles can do not to fall into the darkness dancing around the edges of his vision. Stiles lets out desperate sounds and he seeks something to hold onto so buries his hands in the mud and rocks just outside the tent.

Derek presses his chest along Stiles' back and he can feel warm breath on his shoulder when Derek chuckles before he kisses the skin.

Stiles’ cock jumps back to life when Derek drags the tips of his teeth over the skin then sinks them into the flesh. His hips jerk when he feels Derek filling him with ropes of seed and he whines when his own cock releases onto the bedding again.

Stiles’ world swims and he doesn't know how much time passes before Derek hums then asks, “Did I hurt you?”

Stiles nods and mumbles, “You bit me,” into the cold ground.

“I didn’t draw blood.” Derek kisses his mark. “You’re safe.”

Stiles can’t help the smile that spreads across his face at those two words, even as he can feel himself sliding into a thick sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles isn't sure if it's the bird singing her song on top of the burnt-out woodpile that wakes him or the sudden, crippling cold.

He is pulling the fur up to his shoulders when he notices the tent is empty except for him, the knapsack, and the pile of his own clothes sitting next to it.

Stiles' stomach feels as if it is falling and trying to climb up his throat at the same time. He had thought that being in Mother's nest all these years had robbed him of any semblance of post-coital sentiment. Year after year, lover after lover and Stiles has never wanted more desperately to wake up next to anyone but Derek. He wanted to run a hand over Derek's chest as he takes waking breaths, wanted to be kissed as soon as he opened his eyes, but he is alone and cold, listening to birdsong.

The bird bounces happily in the ash and Stiles watches it as his hand slowly grasps at the cold ground along the edge of their bed.

Once he finds a stone he thinks will sail well, he flings it at the chirping bird, knocking it off the ashpile and into the dirt, dead.

He jumps when the other side of the tent flap is suddenly pulled back but sighs, relieved in so many ways when Derek peers in at him with a furrowed brow.

"Did you just kill that bird?"

“Rock Warblers have no place this far north _and_ it woke me up."

Derek barks a laugh and drops his armful of branches and sticks within the stone circle.

Stiles mutters, "I thought you were gone."

"I was," Derek says with a sigh as he crawls back into the tent. "The fire was dying so I went for more kindling because I didn't want you to be cold."

"I was warm with you next to me."

Derek hums as he leans in to join their lips. Stiles melts into the kiss and he drops the fur from his shoulders so he can lay his hand along Derek's jaw. He lets Derek sweep a palm across his skin as he sweeps his tongue through his mouth but when his hand starts to play along the edge of the fur at Stiles' hips, he breaks their kiss and pulls the hand away.

"We should start getting packed up," he says against Derek's lips and he can feel them frown. "If I'm even a moment late I'm afraid Mother might decide to leave me behind to face the consequences of my blunder."

He leans over Derek to stretch for his clothes and shivers when Derek rests a hand on the bite mark.

"You think she would?"

He wiggles away from Derek's touch before he allows himself to fall under it again.

"I don't want to take the chance."

"Why not just stay and save her the trouble?"

Stiles pulls the tunic over his head and scoffs, "What are you talking about?"

"There's a house," Derek is saying as Stiles pulls on his vest. "About an hour from here on horseback and it's been abandoned, maybe for years."

Stiles furrows his brow as he drags his trousers to his knees and he turns his eyes up to find Derek watching himself flick a piece of straw over his fingertips.

"If you wanted…" He says and Stiles doesn't recognize this tentative man before him. "We could ask the Jarl to sell us the land and—"

Whatever he sees on Stiles' face once he turns his eyes up kills the sentence on his lips.

“But if you’d rather go with your nest, I understand. I only wanted to make a point that there are other options.”

Stiles croaks, “I…"

He doesn't know what to say to Derek's… He shouldn't call it a proposal. Derek's suggestion, his _offer_ of buying abandoned land together and… what?

He gulps and finds himself muttering, "I really should prove myself to her. Ask forgiveness.”

Derek nods sharply. “Of course.”

Stiles watches Derek toss aside the piece of straw, now broken from his grip, then stand as much as he can in the space. He knows he should say something but his brain can't supply the words for his mouth to produce.

"So what happened then?" Derek says as he moves toward the tent flaps. “With the boy, I mean.”

Stiles squeezes his eyes closed. "I don't know."

He moves to his knees and quickly ties his trousers around his hips then joins Derek outside the tent.

"Could it be because he was so young?" Derek's voice is coming from the other side of their temporary hearth and is accented by the low thuds of the stones that were used to hold the tent fur in place. "Or because he died so violently?"

Or maybe Stiles is a fool, and not just for thinking he was powerful enough to hold two spells at once, even without Derek providing further distractions.

"I don't know."

He doesn't know if Derek is aware of him staring at him as they pull down the tent but those green eyes never look back at him. He wonders what Derek must be thinking, whether he regrets making the offer, whether he regrets the time they spent together, whether he regrets walking into the Thaumaturgist's Hut when he did.

They are rolling up all the furs together between their chests when Derek takes a breath.

"Maybe your Daedric Lord is punishing you for consorting with a werewolf."

Stiles chuckles, "Consorting with you is punishment enough."

Derek lets out a soft laugh but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes and Stiles tries to ignore it but that trepidation starts to rip through his belly again.

🌑

The main hall is oddly silent for the morning of a ritual. The air isn't thick with the smell of twenty or more bodies moving together in such a way that one could almost taste it. Stiles supposes that it is his own fault since his neglect meant only four in their ten managed to choose someone.

At the end of the hall is the only closed door and Stiles wonders who Mother may have in her bed that she doesn't want her nest to see.

The yellow hair flowing to Heather's waist ebbs with every thrust of her hips and as he steps into the bedchamber, Stiles can see a pair of green legs jutting out from underneath the dress pooled around her hips. He watches the toes curl as he sets her knapsack full of mead at the end of her bed then moves toward his own.

"There you are!" Heather exclaims and the Orc beneath her doesn't acknowledge Stiles' presence while Heather continues, "I've been waiting on you."

"With bated breath I see."

She giggles as she takes one of the Orc's hands from her hips and brings it to her lips. He moans when she sucks two of his thick fingers into her mouth.

Stiles asks, "Where does he think you are?"

"In his brother's bed with—" She gasps when the Orc gives her a hard push, sending her forward onto her hands. "W-With his brother's favored wife watching us. She _hates_ Nords."

Stiles snickers as he turns his eyes down to the chest at his bedside.

"Speaking of my kinsmen," Heather huffs as Stiles crouches. "How was your handsome wolf? Was I right about the ram's horn?"

Stiles shoves the tent and the sticks that held it together into the chest. He hums and shrugs.

“It's more like a Mammoth tusk."

Heather breathes, "Oh _yes_ ," and Stiles isn't sure if it is in response to his remark or the Orc sitting up to rub his blunted tusk over her nipple.

Stiles listens to the cresting moans of his friend and her thrall as he assesses his belongings, making sure that everything is still together, packed away from the previous afternoon.

He is checking under his bed when he recognizes Heather's satisfied sigh and raises his head in time to see her climb off her thrall to sit at the edge of her bed.

"Are you looking for your stamina potions?" She asks breathlessly, resting her hands on the edge of the bed. "Because I used them."

Stiles stands with a huff and a wince as he faces her. "What was wrong with _yours_?"

"I used mine too."

Stiles raises his brows when she grins.

"The last Orc I had kept going for so long he almost killed me." She shrugs the sleeves back over her shoulders then reaches for her corset at the end of the bed. "I even asked Liam to make me extra but I was still _wildly_ underprepared for this one."

"Then maybe you should've handed him over to his equal."

Stiles smiles as he watches Heather roll her eyes. She doesn't turn to address the Orc laying two beds away from her and busies her hands tying her corset as she grumbles, "Well, I'm still alive aren't I?"

"Shame."

Mother appears in the doorway and Mhaalliea sits bolt straight in her bed.

Her red eyes sweep the room before landing on Stiles. "Where have _you_ been?"

"I was in Morthal," Stiles replies then clears his throat. "Tying up loose ends."

"Securing a thrall?"

He purses his lips then licks them. "No."

Mother takes a deep breath then hums as she turns to Mhaalliea. "While Theo and Liam finish with the Redguard girl, will you help me move something?"

Mhaalliea replies, "Yes Mother," as Heather gasps, "They're _sharing_?" then giggles, "I _knew_ it."

Stiles gulps as Mother steps away from the door with Mhaalliea following behind. He wonders what must be going through Mother's mind, worries whether he was right about her contemplating leaving him behind.

“You don’t seem nearly as happy as I would be if I spent the night with a mammoth-cocked wolf."

He mutters, "I would smile but my mouth still hurts from the stretch."

Heather snorts.

"He…" Stiles sighs and winces as he sits on the end of his bed, facing her. “He mentioned a house somewhere near the shore."

The sleeping Orc on Heather's bed groans and she blindly reaches back to run her hand along his calf.

"He said that it’s been abandoned and he _suggested_ that I...leave the nest and ask the Jarl to buy the plot together.”

Heather blinks. "And what did _you_ say?"

"I didn't say anything."

She scoffs, " _Stiles_!"

He pushes himself off the bed again and grumbles, "What?"

"Can't you see Derek is asking you to start a life with him?"

"I _have_ a life, Heather, _here_ with—"

“Living in tunnels like skeevers is better than a house by the shore?”

Stiles turns away from her and pretends to be looking over his things again.

“Where is he now?”

“Gone.”

“ _Gone_?”

“Back to town and…" Stiles gulps when it dawns on him. "And after what happened he probably won't be coming along so leave it alone.”

“And you _let_ him go when he obviously—"

Mother calls, “Worms!” and Stiles has never been more relieved to hear her voice in his head.

He doesn't look at Heather as he reaches for the backpack leaning against his emptied dresser and pulls it onto his shoulder. He doesn't say a word as he reaches for the chest at his feet and pulls it into his arms then walks out of the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Nearly six hours on horseback through the bitter cold of The Pale and into the bitterest cold in all of Skyrim yet the trip was made even more unbearable by the noise inside Stiles' head.

He hangs at the back of their caravan, eyes riveted on his horse's neck, but he is only seeing the smile that Derek wore before he walked away and how different it was from the one he wore at the beginning of their night. The sound of the whipping wind is undercut by horseshoes clacking on the stone road but Stiles can only hear the disappointed tone in Derek's voice when he was trying to hold a conversation after Stiles turned him down.

During the short layover near Dawnstar to water the horses, Stiles sweeps his gaze around the firepit within their conjured shelter to watch Danny and his Breton, Heather and her Orc, Keeda and her Imperial, Liam, Theo and the Redguard they share, all with a bitter taste in his mouth. Even the tea Mother made to help warm their bones does nothing to change the flavor.

The last leg of their trip isn't quite as miserable as the first. Once they had left the road and any prying eyes behind, they ride two abreast and conjure Flame Atronachs at their side in an attempt to block the freezing wind blowing off the Sea of Ghosts.

His mama had once told him that these Daedra are the souls of malicious women, cursed to burn for the rest of eternity as penance for their sins. She told him that they were given horns as a pronouncement of their malevolence. She told him that they float in a futile attempt to reach Atherius. He told himself that he will never call upon a Flame Atronach because his mama's face is sure to be one he would find looking back at him.

Stiles positions himself and his mount away from the shoreline because seeing this shore would remind him of that house sitting miles away in Hjaalmarch. If he doesn't see the shore, he won't want to think about what kind of life they would have out there, far enough away from other people that Stiles could freely practice his magic and Derek could linger in his beast form.

Before he leads his horse between the walls of ice flanking the cave, Stiles peeks over his shoulder into the distant white behind them, seeking that dot of orange or _anything_ , but he sees only ice and snow.

One by one they dismount and send their Atronachs back to Oblivion before guiding their horses and the thralls into the cavern that isn't much warmer than the air outside it.

"I’d almost forgotten about the smell," Braeden mutters and her words echo in the open space.

"I-Is that a skeleton?"

Ten heads turn to Danny's Breton and they all see the horror on his face as he locks his gaze on the remains leaned against a pillar of ice and rock.

"Don't be ridiculous, Etan," Danny replies as he lays a glowing red hand on the side of his man's head. "Why would there be a skeleton here?"

"Oh…" The Breton sighs and smiles sweetly at Danny. "I must've imagined it."

"Quite alright my love."

"We need to start preparing," Mother says. "Danny, Heather, Keeda, Liam get your thralls into the cage. Jaxun and Theo raise the guards. Stiles arm the trap and give us some light. Braeden and Mhaalliea help me with the horses."

"Yes, Mother."

"Was this not one of yours?" Keeda asks, bumping Mhaalliea with her elbow and nodding to the skeleton.

Mhaalliea sighs, "She was."

"Shame about her neck."

Stiles hears Mhaalliea snicker as he lays his hand over the coal within the brazier standing at the entrance to the adjoining tunnel of ice.

"Are you upset with me?"

Stiles sighs as he pulls his hand away from the brazier. Heather's hopeful expression, her Orc's blank one, and a part of the cave are alighted by the fire he had conjured within the coals. Over her shoulder, Stiles sees Keeda erecting a ladder of ice leading up to the sacrificial chamber.

"No, of course not," he says, reaching out for her hand. "I have a lot on my mind."

She nods. "I understand."

The Orc growls when he notices their joined hands and he grabs Heather by the waist to tug her slighter frame into his side.

"Stop it," Heather admonishes with a slap to the Orc's chest as red-rimmed eyes glare at Stiles.

He snickers and tells her, "We'll talk when I'm done," before turning into the tunnel.

🌑

Stiles can hear Jaxun and Theo behind him muttering between themselves as he conjures flames in every candle, brazier, and lantern they pass, lighting their way to the remains in various states of decomposition frozen in the floors and walls. He thinks about that dead boy in Hjaalmarch as he watches them raise the bodies meant to guard the nest while the ritual is performed. He watches the blue ribbons of light circling each body and thinks about the way that light had shone in Derek's face.

"Careful you don't slip and fall up ahead again, elf," Jaxun says with a snicker as they cross the bridge.

Stiles turns away from watching the snowflakes falling through the hole in the high roof of the cavern.

"Theo, have you ever heard a lizard being smashed under the foot of a Frost Atronach?"

Theo's soft laugh is followed by a low thud and Stiles turns to see Jaxun releasing his fist while Theo rubs his chest.

Stiles smiles as he continues across the bridge and if Jaxun notices that he steps gingerly over the patch of ice that tripped him the last time they were here, he makes no mention of it.

Stiles crouches over the brazier in the middle of the next chamber's floor and lets both hands hover over it. Theo and Jaxun stand and watch in the light of the tunnel as Stiles lifts his arms then sweeps them around the room, bringing firelight to the brazier before him and all the candles around them.

He vaguely hears Theo mutter, "Hello again sweet sister," at the burnt corpse on his right as he does every time he sees the girl who's abdomen he impaled on one of the spikes decorating the room.

"Don't faint on us now," Jaxun grumbles as he steps past Stiles who had dropped to a knee.

He recalls the last time he nearly depleted his magickal energy, how Derek had looked at him while he wiped that wet cloth over his forehead, what the arms felt like around him.

When he hears the gate of spears rattling as it opens, Stiles shakes his head and drags himself to his feet to follow Jaxun and Theo into yet another tunnel of rock and ice.

He watches them move ahead into the chamber and reaches underneath his cloak to the gloves stuck in the rope tied around his robe as the others search the walls for bodies. He pulls the gloves onto his hands in the glow of blue light then waits until they and the skeleton guards move to the other side of the chamber.

One after the other Stiles pulls three black soul gems from his satchel and sets them on the pedestals standing against the chamber walls. He whispers an incantation for each one, arming them with the power of lightning until they spark and hover above their pedestals before moving to the other side of the chamber with Jaxun, Theo, and the guards.

Stiles asks, "Volunteers?" as he slides the gloves off his hands. "I went last time."

"Use your tail Jaxun."

"Suck my tail, Theo."

"I'll heal you if it doesn't work."

"It'll work," Stiles assures. "But someone has to go. What's the matter Shit-For-Face, you scared of a little lightning?"

"Send one of the bonemen!" Jaxun exclaims.

" _I'll_ go," Theo grumbles and shakes his head. "Milk drinker."

They watch as he takes a deep breath then moves slowly toward the nearest black soul gem. He just as slowly raises his hand toward it then waves it in the air in front of the gem. When nothing happens Stiles turns to pluck an arrow from the quiver of the skeleton standing next to him.

"Come back Theo," he says and once the Breton joins them again, Stiles tosses the arrow at the soul gems.

They all hear the loud crack and see the flash of lightning, then watch as the arrow drops burnt black to the cold cave floor.

"I told you it works," Stiles says as he turns down the final tunnel that leads them into the sacrificial chamber. "So long as you touched the gems before they were armed, so long as you offered them a part of your soul, the trap won't affect you."

"But I don't understand," Keeda's Imperial is whining through the bars of the cage as Jaxun, Stiles, and Theo make their way up the ramp toward the blood-soaked altar. "Why am I in here with…with _them_."

"All will be revealed in due time dear one," she replies then runs a clawed finger over his crooked jaw.

Heather mutters, "She always gives them too much free reign over their own minds," as he sits next to her on the wooden bench closest to the altar.

Stiles hums and reaches up for the clasp on his cloak as he looks around at the candles.

He has never known the flames, a deep penetrating blue much like the ones alighting the plane of Coldharbour, to have ever gone out for as long as he has been coming here. He always supposed it was Molag Bal Himself who keeps them lit as a message to his Worms that he is watching, waiting for the souls they offer to him.

Heather flicks her hair over her shoulder as she faces him. "So are you going to tell me what's been on _your_ mind?"

"I think you can probably guess."

She gives him a sympathetic smile and opens her mouth but it is Mother's voice that they hear.

“Stiles.” His name echoes in the chamber and he turns but he doesn't see her amongst the others. “May I have a word at the entrance.”

He gives Heather a wary glance that she returns as he clasps his cloak again.

A heaviness settles in Stiles' chest as he moves to stand at the opening in the palisade across from the cage that separates both areas of the chamber and finds Mother's red eyes staring right back at him.

He can feel those eyes watching him carefully descend every rung of ice and once he stands before her, surrounded by sleeping horses, she nods toward the tunnel leading to the entrance of the cave.

The freezing wind sweeping over the sea, guided by the walls of ice, blows directly into the cavern and creates a column of air that makes Stiles and Mother shiver when they step into it.

"How long have you been with me?"

"Over five years."

“And in those years, how many times have you completed this ritual?”

He takes a moment to think about the few faces he remembers and all the ones he's forgotten. “Dozens.”

“And you've been exceptional," she says as they step into the evening light. "Every sacrifice made you a better mage and I'm not shy to say that your abilities may be second to none in our nest."

Stiles purses his lips so they don't shake whether from the air or the praise.

"Your power is further exacerbated by your phylogeny yet despite all this, you failed to properly hold the spell after raising a dead child while succeeding to bring a wolf to the Revenant's door.”

Stiles furrows his brow and he watches her wave her arm out to the side.

The illusion fades with a red shimmer and Stiles' knees nearly buckle when he sees the man standing before them, but something quickly catches his attention.

"You enthralled him?"

Stiles reaches out to lay his hand on Derek's jaw as the edge of rage bubbles in his chest.

"The spell will wear off momentarily," Mother says, unbothered. "And he won't be too terribly affected."

He stares at Derek's lidded, red-ringed and unseeing eyes.

“Your experience with this ritual proves that you understand this cave is consecrated. It is _not_ a place for rendezvous."

Stiles closes his eyes. "I know Moth—"

"So unless you mean to lay him on the altar, _get rid of him_.”

"Yes, Mother."

Derek groans softly and Mother turns to make her way back into the cave.

“How did you know?”

She folds her arms as she faces him again. “Those creatures harbor a certain… _stench_ and that odor has hung over _you_ for days.”

Stiles raises his brows.

"I suspected that you had been turned but the Canis Root in your tea proved otherwise and I extrapolated from there."

"Stiles…"

When he speaks Mother looks at Derek with a measure of disgust.

"Stiles?"

He turns at the call of his name and sighs softly when he sees a pair of clear green eyes, like glass under lake water, staring back at him.

"Stiles!"

His face falls when he sees the panic that has suddenly risen in Derek's eyes. He winces when Derek grabs him by the arms.

"Derek, wh—"

"On the way here I overheard a pair of travelers talking about this place. They were asking for directions in Dawnstar."

"That's not possible." Stiles shakes his head as he stares into Derek's wild eyes. "We're all—"

"These people aren't members of your Order, Stiles." Derek breaks eye-contact and Stiles searches his face as he wonders if this is an unusual reaction to the spell. "The-The Dark Elf wasn't abnormal, maybe a sellsword, but the Nord…" He turns his eyes to Stiles' again. "She smells like fire and...and _ancient_ Magicka, Stiles, it's not safe here. I ran ahead but they weren't far behind me."

Stiles doesn't know if he should believe Derek's wild ramblings or take him inside and get him something to drink or put him back to sleep.

"If something is amiss," he says, slowly pacifying. "Then I have to tell Mother."

Derek searches his eyes then nods before taking Stiles by the back of the head and pulling him in to kiss.

“Please hurry,” he breathes then kisses Stiles again. “I'll keep watch but _hurry_.”

Stiles nods and he takes a moment to watch Derek turn to walk back down the pathway between the walls of ice.

🌑

"I’ve never seen him like that. He just seems so…" Stiles looks toward the tunnel leading into the preparation chamber as if he can see Derek pacing outside. "Convincing."

"Or maybe you only think so because you've taken his cock."

"At least he has a cock Jaxun."

Mother raises her hand and Jaxun's reply is snapped shut in his mouth.

"What makes him so convincing?" She asks, "What if he is luring us out of the cave and into a trap?"

Stiles shakes his head. "Derek wouldn't do that."

Liam retorts, "Because you know him so well?"

Stiles sighs and rolls his eyes.

"We're completing the ritual," Mother says and Stiles can do nothing but nod. “But you’re welcome to go with your wolf as long as you’re aware we won’t be taking you back.”

Stiles’ jaw falls open and he can see the way Jaxun turns to look at Mother as well as the matching look of horror on Heather’s face.

"I…” He gulps. “I'll make it quick.”

“See that you do.”

A blast of sound echoes through the cave’s frozen halls and every body in the chamber, even the chamber itself, shakes with the force of it. Flakes of ice fall from the ceiling onto their heads and shoulders.

Danny mutters, “What in Oblivion was that?”

Mother replies, “Sounds like your wolf has entered our sanctuary,” with a hard glare at Stiles.

He moves away from the source of the sound, through the chamber with the soul gems and into the sacrificial chamber beyond it. He can hear footsteps sliding over the ice behind him but he doesn’t look to see who is following.

The thralls are crouched in one corner of the cage but what sends a slice of cold down Stiles’ back is Theo’s body, slumped against the door of the cage he was charged to watch over. Blood trails out of his mouth, the arrow in his chest is buried up to the tail.

Liam’s scream echoes nearly as loud as that roar did and he shoves past Stiles to make his way toward the body.

“Your wolf did this,” Mother snarls by his shoulder and Stiles shakes his head.

“ _How_?” He turns to look in her red eyes. “You saw Derek. You know he had no weapons.”

Mother scoffs and waves her arm at Liam sobbing into Theo’s shoulder. “Well, then how do you explain—”

The telltale crack of the soul gem lightning sounds and Stiles gasps. If it was Derek making his way toward them then the trap would’ve stopped him indefinitely, werewolf abilities be damned.

Mother turns to Danny and Heather. “Bring me his hide.”

“It’s not him!” Stiles exclaims though he isn’t sure if he’s right.

“Who else would it be?” Mother replies without looking back at him. “A Nord woman who smells like fire?”

He scoffs but purses his lips because he doesn’t have anything to say in response.

They listen to the thralls' increasingly panicked cries from within the cage, undercut by Liam’s sobs as they wait for Danny and Heather to reemerge from the adjoining chamber with Derek or _someone's_ body. As they wait, Stiles wraps his arms around himself to try to stop the rocking that moves him with every thud of his heart against his sternum.

He hears Mother mutter, “What’s taking so long?” in the same moment that he hears his name echo in the chamber.

They both turn to find that Liam has moved Theo’s corpse away from the cage and is now running his hand over the dead Breton’s hair.

Another call of “Stiles!” makes him gasp when it proves not to have been Liam’s voice.

Stiles steps away and narrowly avoids Mother’s grasp when she reaches out to stop him.

He can't stifle the distressed sound he makes when he sees Derek standing below the palisade with an arrow sticking out of the back of his shoulder or the way his arm hangs at his side.

Derek yells, “They’re here!” in the same moment that something whizzes past Stiles’ eyes.

He can hear the arrow twanging in the wall when he turns to watch as Mother falls to her knees. The hand around the arrow buried in her neck does nothing to stop the blood spurting between her fingers.

Movement at the corner of his vision brings Stiles’ attention to the woman across the space. He notices that her hair is the color of a roaring flame before he notices the bow she is arming with another arrow aimed at his head.

Derek cries, “JUMP!” from below and the sound of his voice shocks Stiles enough to force him to do just that lest he suffers the same date as Mother and Theo.

Stiles rolls his ankle when he lands but he doesn’t cry out until he sees Braeden’s body lying dead underneath the first brazier he lit when they arrived.

“Here!” Derek yells and Stiles turns to see him dragging one of the horses by the reins with his working arm toward the tunnel leading into the cave.

Stiles whimpers as he limps behind Derek and the horse.

Another blast of sound, much like the one that had echoed through the cave at the beginning of this ordeal, and Stiles is knocked through the wall of air, sending his shoulder into the wall of the cave.

As he groans at the pain in his ankle and now his shoulder, Stiles takes the chance to look up at their attackers. He realizes with horror that the deafening sound, seemingly blocked by the wall of air, is coming from within the Nord woman. Behind her, he sees the Dunmer woman sliding the edge of a dagger over Liam’s throat.

Stiles exhales a wail of grief before Derek takes him by the hand and pulls him out of the cave.


	7. Chapter 7

They make it to Wayward Pass before Stiles grabs the reins from Derek’s grasp and guides the horse to a powdery stop.

But for the tea Mother made, a half loaf of bread and an apple on the trip, Stiles hadn’t eaten all day so it burns when he slides from the saddle to his knees and expels bile into the snow.

He wipes the sleeve of his robe over his lips.

"Who were they?"

"I don't know," Derek replies, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Assassin's maybe."

Stiles shakes his head. "That Nord..." He gags then spits into the snow. "We need to go back."

"Stiles."

"No, listen to me." He grabs at the knee of Derek's trousers. "Heather, Danny, Mhaalliea, Jaxun they might still be alive."

"Stiles." Derek falls to his knees and takes Stiles' face in his hands. "Your friends are dead."

He wails, "You don't know that!"

"I'm so sorry," Derek breathes as he runs his thumbs through Stiles' tears. "But they're dead and we're alive so we need to keep moving. We need to get out of the mountains in case they're tracking us through the snow."

Stiles sniffles as he turns to look down the moonslit path they came. He wants to see the remaining horses blasting through the snow much the way theirs did, carrying bodies he recognizes, the bodies of the friends that survived that assault on their sanctuary. But there is no such sight no matter how much he wants or how long he waits.

He nods.

With a sigh, Derek makes his way to his feet again then offers his hand to pull Stiles up.

"Oh, your arm," Stiles says as he stands on his own. "They shot you."

"It's fine." Derek shakes his head as he flexes the arm the arrow was buried in. "They must have dipped it in a paralytic to get past me." He rolls his shoulder. "Might also be why I can't call upon my beast form but...I can already feel it working out of my body."

"Paralytic." Stiles closes his eyes and mutters, "They didn't kill you because they weren't after _you_."

"But they _are_ now," Derek says, taking Stiles' hand. "Nightgate Inn isn't too far from here. Maybe we can find someone to look you over or at least buy a healing potion."

"Yeah," Stiles says and as if cued by Derek's words, his ankle and shoulder start to throb. "Alright."

🌑

Her name was Marin once, before she became Mother, before she selected her group of nine and gave them purpose, direction. Braeden had only been with them three years even though she was the oldest after Stiles and Mother. Danny the Imperial had been there two years and he must have been the only person that could stand to be around Jaxun for longer than the length of a meal. Stiles had always felt sorry for him over that. Keeda and Mhaalliea, for how friendly they were with each other, could not have been more different. Keeda cared about her thralls, gave them as much free will as she could, and would often let them go if they asked, while Mhaalliea would keep her thralls so dazed they would often die because they forget to eat. It wasn't clear just how close Theo and Liam had become until Stiles saw the way Liam clutched Theo's dead body in the cave. It was Liam's first time doing the ritual and Stiles doesn't know which one of them offered to share his Redguard thrall but he must have found comfort in Theo's help.

And Heather…

His chest aches when he thinks about the woman he loved, his closest friend who has been with him since before he was found.

“Stiles!”

Derek is standing in the doorless doorway of the room they've rented, his face a mask of mortification as his hands slide down from covering his ears, protecting against the sound Stiles had made.

His frustration, his bitterness at losing first his home, then his family, his livelihood, his peace had expelled in a cry so loud it shook the windows above the three heads in the inn as well as added a few more cracks to the already horribly cracked floor.

The air around them buzzes and crackles. He notices Derek's hair standing on end as he moves toward him, tossing the clothes he carried onto the bed before falling to his knees before where Stiles himself is knelt on the floor, clutching onto his robe.

He had managed to pull it off without his hands shaking, revealing the clothes he wore underneath to stave off the miserable cold, but once he held the heavy fabric in his hands Stiles couldn’t help but think about the other nine bodies wearing robes just like it, lying lifeless in that frozen cave under the will of those women. He couldn’t hold his grief any longer. 

Derek breathes his name as he cups Stiles’ face in both hands.

He whines, "The bodies."

"What?"

"The bodies, Derek, what if they burn them?"

"Stiles."

"If those women…" Stiles gasps a sob. "If they burn the bodies then I ca—I can't ever bring them back Derek they'll be gone." He turns his gaze up to the ceiling. "They'll be _gone_!"

"Oh, my little elf…" Derek sighs and shakes his head before laying his forehead against Stiles’. “They’re already gone.”

He kisses Stiles through the tears that have yet to stop rolling down his face.

"Are we going to have a problem?" The innkeeper asks from the frame of the doorway.

Stiles breaks their kiss and turns his eyes up to the Nord. This man, balding and grey-bearded looks nothing like the flame-haired woman in the cave but Stiles snarls and raises a spell to him all the same.

Derek grabs him by the wrist as he moves to stand between Stiles and the innkeeper.

"He's just upset," Derek cajoles. "We'll keep the noise down."

"Please do."

The innkeeper takes another moment to stare at Stiles before stepping out of the doorframe, but Stiles can still see her standing there, her hair flickering around her head like a blaze. She is laughing at him.

Derek drops to a knee before Stiles again. "Were you about to kill him?"

"My entire family is dead," he says to the illusion in the doorway. "What's _one_ innkeeper?"

Derek sighs, "And if I'd let you kill him, would you turn your Magicka on _me_ next?"

Stiles blinks and his eyes find Derek's.

"Of course not," he says, and his voice breaks. "I could never hurt you."

"Then come here."

Stiles takes a deep breath as he watches Derek move to slide across the floor then leans against the worn, wood bed frame. He crawls to Derek, sits alongside him, lines their bodies up from arm to leg.

"Tell me about your family," Derek requests as he slides their hands together. "Tell me about Heather."

Stiles turns to search Derek's eyes then smiles. "You promise you won't get jealous?"

Derek hums. "No."

Stiles chuckles as he shifts until he can lay his head on Derek's shoulder.

"She was a winemaker's daughter," he says. "In a previous life."

Derek leans his cheek onto Stiles' head. "Had you known her long?"

"Just over six years." And he still remembers the day he first saw her bobbing up the inn steps, her much shorter yellow hair billowing in the breeze rolling through the streets of Anvil. "She was making a delivery in Cyrodiil with her father when she noticed me watching her."

"Was it love at first sight?"

Stiles smiles though fresh tears roll down his cheeks. "Her papa would have none of it. So we ran away to Skyrim and Mother found us shortly after. Gave us a real home."

"In exchange for the occasional sacrifice."

Stiles shrugs and Derek snickers. He turns when Stiles raises his head.

"I never thanked you for saving my life," he says and Derek purses his lips. "You didn't even have to come here after the way I…" He clears his throat. "So thank you."

“I didn’t know if you would be happy to see me," Derek admits softly. "Here I was dragging myself through The Pale terrified that you would turn me away at the end of my journey."

"No," Stiles whispers and lifts his hand to run through Derek's hair. “But if you thought I was angry with you then why did you come?”

“To apologize.”

Stiles blinks then scoffs, “You have nothing to apologize for.”

Derek shakes his head. "I overstepped."

" _I_ underreacted." He rests his hand on Derek's healed shoulder and uses it to pull him up so they can look directly at each other. "I should've jumped at the chance to start something with you but… I'd been told about all my inadequacies for so long that it's often all I can think about and… I didn't want _me_ to ruin whatever future we could've had."

Derek furrows his brow. "Told by whom?"

Stiles clenches his teeth behind pursed lips. Every day he tries not to think about her or the things she did and said to him from the moment he could understand her until the night she died, but if he doesn't explain now, he is afraid he'll lose Derek for good. Thus proving her right.

"My mother," Stiles croaks and giving her that title hurts more to expel than the bile spewing from his gut and into the snow earlier. "My _real_ mother." He lays his other hand on his belly. “She was the one who gave me this scar.”

He sees the question on Derek’s face without him asking it.

“She was mad,” he replies. "The healers we brought to her couldn't agree whether it was Ash Woe Blight or Greenspore but she was out of her mind long before any sickness took her."

“Where is she now?”

The sense of pride he feels as he answers, "In Coldharbour with the broken spine I gave her in exchange for this scar," is misplaced, he knows, but it flows over him all the same.

"You killed your own mother?"

Stiles searches Derek’s face and finds his expression unreadable.

"She confessed to me that she had killed my father in his sleep while trying to do the same to me moments later."

Derek raises his brows.

"I was trying to get the dagger covered in my father's blood out of her hand and as we were fighting, I… pushed her."

He can still hear the fluttering of her dress as she sailed over the balustrade, he can still hear her shout as she fell, he can still hear the crack as her body bent over the edge of the table below before slumping to the floor. He still dreams of seeing her yellow eyes watching him drag his bleeding body past her to the door while she can do nothing to stop him.

"Do my actions disgust you?"

“No,” Derek replies easily and Stiles almost sobs with relief but he swallows it. “You did what you had to in order to survive.”

Stiles chuckles morosely. "I seem to be doing a lot of surviving lately."

Derek sighs as he rests his hand on Stiles’ knee as he lays his lips against Stiles’ temple.

Stiles' eyes drift back to the robe. "Should I apologize to the innkeeper?"

" _And_ perhaps persuade him not to give us away to anyone who may come looking."

Stiles takes a deep breath as he squeezes their hands together as he looks Derek in his tired eyes.

"You know you don't have to do this," he says. "They were never after you so if you wanted to go our separate ways then—"

"Is that what _you_ want?"

His answer is a quick and serious, "No."

Derek shrugs. "Then I'm staying."

Stiles purses his lips as Derek takes their interweaved hands and lays Stiles' palm against his cheek.

"I know I can't replace all that you've lost but I'll stay by your side for as long as you'll have me."

Stiles stares at Derek's face, unblemished as it is now, no scars, no lines, no marks at all. He isn't old now and his affliction may slow his aging for some time but he will age, as all men do. Decades, maybe a century down the line, Derek's hair will grey, his bones will become brittle, he may even start to lose his mind, all this while Stiles will be barely brushing against middle age.

"I'll have you 'til the day you die," he replies with a smile. "And then I'll have you back again."

Derek laughs softly as he leans his face into Stiles' touch. “I'll cherish this life and the next with you.”


End file.
